Nighttime Anxiety
by Linaxtic
Summary: After the battle for their school, Coco can't sleep because they keep seeing the people they love getting hurt. Non-binary tiger Faunus Coco in a poly relationship with their team.


The sounds of the night filled the room as Coco shifted in the bed, leaning up against the head board with their knees pulled up tightly to their chest, arms wrapped around their legs to keep them close. Their feline ears twitched at the slightest abnormal sounds–the irregular chirping of crickets outside, the break in Yatsuhashi's deep snores as his breathing stopped then started up again, Fox mumbling in his sleep as he snuggled closer to his larger teammate. Even Velvet wasn't sleeping completely peacefully beside her lovers. The rabbit Faunus kept shifting in her sleep as though she couldn't quite get comfortable.

Sighing softly, Coco watched over all of them in the dim light that poured in through the windows, reaching one hand down to gently stroke Velvet's brown locks. The leader couldn't say why, but anxiety was building in their gut, coiling tighter and tighter like a spring, and ready to burst. Though, after everything they–their team, the school, even the whole kingdom–had been through recently, maybe it wasn't so surprising that the tiger Faunus was anxious, even paranoid.

"Mm…Coco?" came a sleepy mumble, and the leader looked down to see Velvet rubbing her eyes and looking up at them. "You okay?"

"Shh…I'm fine, Honey Bun. Go back to sleep." They gave her a gentle smile, but she didn't do as her lover asked, slowly pushing herself up on her elbow and glancing toward the glowing blue numbers on the clock.

"It's 4:30 in the morning. Have you slept at all?" She had seen the dark circles under Coco's eyes lately that they had hidden from others with their trademark sunglasses, so she already knew the answer.

"I promise, I'm fine," they insisted, leaning down to kiss the top of her head. But Velvet wasn't satisfied, and she moved to sit beside Coco, laying her head on their shoulder.

"I know you haven't been sleeping, and I think I know why," she whispered, reaching to take Coco's hand in hers and twine their fingers together. "You're scared. Aren't you?" The tone in her voice let Coco know that she already knew she was right, so they sighed, squeezing her hand.

"It was just…there were so many of them. And they weren't mindless…not like the ones on our last mission, anyway. They were brought in…deliberately brought in…just for chaos and destruction. People did this, Velvet…and a lot of people got hurt…all of you got hurt."

"You were hurt, too," she reminded them, putting a hand on her side where she could feel the bandages through the fabric of their night shirt. Coco flinched slightly, still sore from the attacks, and the tournament match before that. Velvet pulled her hand back quickly, ears drooping sadly. "I'm…I'm sorry…"

"I'm fine," they snapped, then stopped, sighing. "I'm sorry, Honey Bun. I'm not mad at you. I promise." They moved to lie down, pulling Velvet close and letting the rabbit Faunus snuggle into them.

"I know you're not, Coco. You're worried. I don't blame you. Actually, I'd be worried if you weren't. We were attacked in a place we were supposed to be safe in. But we're here. We're alive. We survived and we're all here."

"And some of us are trying to sleep," came a deep, disgruntled voice, startling Coco and Velvet. The two looked over to see Yatsuhashi and Fox looking up at them, clearly miffed at being woken up.

"I'm sorry we woke you up," Coco apologized, leaning so they could kiss both of them apologetically in turn "I couldn't sleep and Velvet was worried," they said.

"We're all worried about you," Yatsuhashi informed them. Fox rolled to his side to face them, reaching to put his hand on their arm as Velvet wrapped her arms around their waist from behind, nuzzling against their back. Yatsuhashi pressed close against Fox from behind, reaching one of his large arms to pull all three of them as close to himself as he could.

"We're safe," Fox whispered in his gravelly voice. "Get some rest. We'll be here when you wake up."

They would never say just how exhausted Coco had run themself over the last few days, but, in spite of fighting it, they couldn't help drifting to sleep, being held safely by the people they loved most.


End file.
